Hola

Welcome to From The Soles Of The Feet.

I’m a flamenco student based in London. I started this blog because I needed somewhere to put all my thoughts and feelings about flamenco.

The name of the blog comes from Lorca, writing about duende, which is what is present in truly great flamenco, and other arts and experiences. By great good luck (or, perhaps, mischief!) I got an enormous, staggeringly powerful hit of duende the first time I saw flamenco, and now I’m a junkie who hunts it.

“The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought.

I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say:

‘The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’

Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation. Everything that has black sounds in it, has duende: that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain.”

If you are an expert, please look kindly on my stumbling attempts at getting inside this strange magic, and forgive the mistakes. I’m learning, but with flamenco I find the more I know, the more I know I don’t know. Something tells me this is going to be a long journey – but it’s too late now, it’s under my skin…

Review: Sadler’s Wells Flamenco Festival 2010: Gala Flamenca, Todo Cambia (Rocio Molina, Belen Lopez, Pastora Galvan, Manuel Linas)

The last night of the festival is always something special. It always has a little extra kick in the show and the atmosphere. It’s partly celebratory, of course, but the fire is fuelled by sadness that it’s all over so soon for another whole year, an endless, agonisingly long time to wait for another feast such as this. Of course, the waiting only makes it sweeter, dammit.

The final Gala show brought together 4 youthful – all 30 or under – and stellar dancers: Rocio Molina, Manuel Linan, Belen Lopez and Pastora Galvan,  in a display of pure movement. No narratives, no theories, no themes, no fancy sets. Just dance. And what dance.

Rocio Molina opened the night. Molina is one of my favourite dancers in the world. Elfin, mercurial, she’s human quicksilver and sassy to boot. I saw her in last year’s gala, Mujeres, and immediately bought tickets to her own piece, Oro Viejo, where she showcased a simply astonishing range. Most dancers tend to do one thing really well, convey one mood better than the rest.  And frankly, with the complexity of flamenco, doing that is praiseworthy enough. But Molina is one of those irritating human beings who can do it all, from slapstick to commanding to heartbreaking.

She bounded on dressed in a skintight chocolate leather shift dress, leather waisted belt, matching bolero jacket and knee-high boots, firmly underlining her place in the new generation – no frills here. She held golden bells, and the sound, her clothes and her leaping, skittering style evoked nothing so much as an unfeasibly cute little pony, which she played up to, pawing her boots on the ground and tossing her hair, which unfortunately came free of its moorings and thoroughly got in the way. [CORRECTION: many thanks to Kimhe for adding some illumination on this in her comment below: “Molinas hair coming in her way during the taranto is an essential part of the dance, as it is a tribute to Fernanda Romero’s taranto in which the expressive fluttering hair is a core element.” Check out the fantastic piece of vintage flamenco footage!)

She was, as ever, effervescent fun to watch, but somehow the piece felt a little unfocused… it’s hard to define, but she didn’t quite feel there. I couldn’t help comparing it to Oro Viejo, where she inhabited every role and moment completely. She was more present in the next piece, a showcase for dazzling footwork on little wooden boxes, clad insouciantly in cropped trousers, a slouchy jumper and absolute lust-inducing red shoe boots with beige toes and heels.

What I particularly enjoy about Molina is her complete control over the sound of her feet – this is so very hard, and so very powerful when it’s done right. It’s easy to stamp it out like a woman possessed. But graduating the sound, from the harshest slam to the gentlest caress of the stage, and sometimes doing this within the same few seconds, is mesmerising. It becomes, like palmas, an instrument in itself.

Rocio’s footwork in tonight’s show reminded me that one of my favourite sounds in the world is the flamenco sound that really captured my heart, the first time I saw it, when I saw Sara Baras in this very same theatre. And it’s not a stamp, or a clap, or a castanet snap, or the yearning, keening call of the singer.

It’s the very slow, very delicate, whispering scrape of a zapato as it is pulled along the floor, making a semi-circle. And the room is still. And the room is silent. And every single person’s breath is caught in their throat, and the whole enormous, prestigious, dazzling London theatre, with its trees full of fairy lights and its enormous auditorium and its decades of history and fifteen hundred people sitting here are all nothing – in complete thrall to the power of one, single, shoe tracing a line on the floor.

That is flamenco.

Manuel Linan, the only man in the lineup, was a revelation. Compact, blond and composed, he strolled on for his solo in red braces, high-waisted trousers and wielding a silver cane, and a little of Astaire’s stardust lingered on his heels. The whole piece was a completely new style to me in flamenco – as well as Astaire it summoned up a little Gene Kelly, a little Bob Fosse, but was flamenco through and through. It was razor-sharp, without showy affectation and posturing; his finger snaps like little gunshots, just lethally entertaining. Linan is a collaborator with Rafaela Carrasco, and I respond to the same focused, audacious imagination in both of them – here is Linan making a bata de cola look – well, damn hot and subversive -  in his 2006 production, “1980″ (right).

The revelations just kept coming for me with my introduction to Belen Lopez, who owned the theatre, let alone the stage, in a way that would be impressive for a 45 year old. She’s 24. She remorselessly tore several strips off alegrias, leaving it quivering somewhere in the dust, whimpering quietly and considering a career move to tea dance.

You do not, under any circumstances, get in this woman’s way. And don’t think that means she’s just a machine-gunner, rat-a-tat-ing the stage. She is a rich, expressive whirling dervish, whipping up a storm of emotion, never allowing her extraordinary footwork to become one-note.

She was, sadly, horribly let down by her costume, a gruesome tight white trouser suit that inevitably involved a camel toe – come on costume team, show some respect! In the video clips she wears a much more stylish red number. However it says a lot for her firebrand intensity and compelling style that she managed to overcome the indignities of the costume and whip us all into adoring submission. Lopez has a fantastic glitter of madness in her eye – it’s never out of control, but just teetering on the edge. She probably has duende for breakfast.

The final dancer was Pastora Galvan. There’s a richness and creaminess about her name, and so it is with her style. She is more… internal than Molina or Lopez, but also more refined, more elegant -  regal. She has a stealthy sensuality, a slow burn rather than a raging fire.

If they were drinks, Rocio Molina would be an ice-cold, dazzling gin and tonic on a hot day, zingy, fresh, sparkling and silvery. Belen Lopez would be a tequila shot: fiery, powerful, leaving you reeling with a ringing in your ears and a warmth in your throat. Pastora Galvan would be a Cognac – warming, grown-up, complex and refined.

She’s a very centred dancer – it’s a difficult quality to describe, but she pulls everything together in a graceful sort of “oneness” that is very satisfying. She’s commanding, but not showy – it felt a little like she was the older sister, bringing a little more depth – although she’s only 28.

The final dance, with Galvan in a traditional bata de cola, Lopez in a slim frock and Linas in a suit did, alas, lack a little sparkle. I was a little disappointed not to see all four of them dance together, it would have been a fascinating finale to see their different styles and approaches brought together, especially because the whole evening felt fresh and modern and somehow purposeful.

Last year’s Gala looked through time at three generations. This one felt resolutely forward-facing. There was a fire in its belly, it was going somewhere, it had intention and meaning – something I didn’t get from Cambio de Tercio, despite Rojas and Rodriguez’s insistence that they are making flamenco modern and relevant. I felt like Molina, Lopez, Linas and Galvan are four artists who are breathing 21st century life into this art form, but just because they are who they are, and it is already a 21st century form, not because they feel that it somehow needs tarting up and rescuing. They are defining new paths, and reinterpreting old ones, with integrity and heart, and as they do so they show how flamenco is seemingly infinitely plastic. Once you fall down the rabbit hole, anything can, and probably will, happen.

It was a feeling that made the blood sing in my veins. It was a good night to be here, to be alive, and to love flamenco.

Review: Sadlers Wells Flamenco Festival 2010: Maria Pages, Autorretrato

I was very intrigued to see Maria Pages for the first time, not just for flamenco reasons, but very personal ones – I’d heard she is a very tall woman, indeed she is apparently known as “the dancer with endless arms”. I’m 5’11″, and have found no role models in flamenco. In fact my height is something I struggle with in class, constantly – partly awkwardness at standing out, partly worrying about whether I can be as graceful and speedy as the smaller girls, and partly just a general feeling of hulking second-rateness born of living in a society that values delicate, fragile, petite femininity, where women must be shorter than men, unless they are coltish, angular models, which I am not. So whatever I write, I know I am filtering it through my own fears, feelings and insecurities.

Pages definitely offered a vision to inspire – she has style and personality, and I left feeling energised and tapping the rhythms on the Tube platform. She is most definitely tall – at least my height – rangy and long-limbed, dwarfing tiny Eva Yerbabuena and Rafaela Carrasco; her body is athletic and powerful in a clean-cut, masculine way, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, her face handsome rather than pretty. She is indisputably the leader of her pack, an old-fashioned diva, the star of the show.  She is witchy in the best sense of the word, like Florence (and the Machine), like Serafina Pekkala in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or Tilda Swinton in The Chronicles of Narnia – she subverts expectations. When she moves she seems to be summoning up forces from the air. But I didn’t feel the spell working. Some moments left me quiet and deeply emotional with their beauty, though this was more often due to design than duende.

The opener began with a stunning image, Pages lit dramatically in front of a mirror. But it was emotionally leaden – it felt like a dry run-through, with too much arm posing and uninteresting footwork. The arms were a feature all the way through, I am guessing because they are her trademark – but there was too much of it. The following number raised the pace, her company of 4 men and 4 women demonstrating superb precision and expression in a rhythmic set piece that demanded absolute perfection and clarity of footwork as they all moved simultaneously. Another Pages solo, her in a little black dress in front of a moving mirror, was playful and magical – the mirror zigzagging across the stage, making her catch up and move with it, and finally rapping out a little echo of her final stamps. Charming and witty, it seemed to encapsulate Pages.

At one point the singing of Ana Ramon was so duskily rich and heartbreaking that I found myself thinking, rather darkly, that if I were dying, this would be the voice I’d want to hear. Wise, elegiac, calming, comforting but not in a sugary way – it sounded like a lament and a reassurance – it’s time to go, but also to become something else. My chest was tight, and I swallowed a lump in my throat. She has duende, and I’d have liked to hear much more of her. Her male counterpart Ismael de la Rosa was also a soulful, beautiful singer – powerful but without any harsh screeching.

Pages is a polymath, like Sara Baras – she is the star, the choreographer, the director, a lyricist, a musician, the set designer and the wardrobe designer. And her eye for set design is stunning. One scene took my breath away: the stage opened with three enormous golden picture frames hangng from the ceiling, and the company posed within them, lit like paintings, first still, then moving in the frames, then bursting out of them, dressed in sombre black. It reminded me of the film Frida, in fact as Pages reminds me a little of Frida Kahlo – something about her uncompromisingness, the set of her jaw.

Then Pages danced out of the central frame in a dress so lovely I practically had to sit on my hands to stop myself running on stage and ripping it off her. A simple vest dress, the top half nude and fading, dip-dye, into a rosy fuschia, double layered, fine transparent organza over an opaque lining. Pages has great taste, and the fact that a place in the credits is reserved for “Fabric dyeing and painting” by Maria Calderon’s workshop says it all. They have done a wonderful job.

In a fun piece Pages broke what I hadn’t realised felt like a rule – that the dancer doesn’t speak or sing. She sort of rapped a whole section, a sassy, funny choreography with the women in silk kimonos facing off with the men in suits over who could dance better, then coming together to follow their leader Pages. I couldn’t understand the story, but it was enjoyable and Pages both sent up castanet-playing and also made it seem fun and effortless.

In Pages’ final piece she demonstrated complete mastery of the mantilla, and showed exactly what long limbs are made for. I’ve often seen dancers fumble a little with the enormous scarf, but Pages handled it as if it was an extension of herself. And yet… and yet… I could appreciate the mastery, but I just wasn’t moved. And for me this summed up the whole evening.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that throughout the show I could hardly hear her footwork at all – the band were too loud, and pretty much all her footwork was lost. I can’t believe for a minute that a performer of this standard would have muddy footwork, so it was a shame that the too-loud music made it seem so.

Apart from Ana Ramon’s singing, I didn’t get a taste of duende tonight. But as a self-portrait, it definitely succeeded. I left feeling like I’d looked into the mirror with Pages and had a sense of the shape of her, inside and out. I need to find my own shape, but it’s good to know that there’s definitely room for a 5’11″ one.

Flamenco on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour: Maria Pages interview

“With hand clapping and foot stamping, the flamenco originates from the Andalucian region of Spain. Now, with the 2010 Flamenco Festival underway at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, one of its stars, the dancer Maríá Pagés, joins Jenni to talk about the flamenco and what makes it so special. To discuss the history of the dance and its social importance they are joined by Parvati Nair, a professor of Hispanic Cultural Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of a blog on flamenco.”

Listen to the interview until 3 March.

Review: Sadler’s Wells Flamenco Festival 2010: Eva Yerbabuena, Lluvia

Eva Yerbabuena’s performance at last year’s festival broke my heart. She is a dancer of extraordinary depth and soul, able to navigate the dark places with grace, warmth and sensuality, and take you with her. So I had high expectations of Lluvia (Rain), her new piece which she describes as being born from melancholy, from a grey rainy day. Unfortunately, for me the piece was definitely more fizzle than fire.

Yerbabuena says it is “A tribute to melancholy and coldness, to being alive, to the endlessness of life”. Which is pretty all-encompassing, and this lack of focus results in a strange, diffident, vague kind of piece. It also, rather oddly, bears no relation at all to its publicity shots, which take the rain theme literally and (one rather wet-T-shirt contest shot aside) look exciting and intriguing – as you can see on the left.

Lluvia has several parts, which may be connected in a narrative, or may not. It feels like a dream, skipping from one bit of a story to the next, a dark Alice in Wonderland, wandering through doors, trying on costumes, playing with barriers – at one point her husband, Pepe de Pura, sings voicelessly from the background.

It opens with Eva coming up onto the stage from the audience, barefoot and dressed in a drab peach and white lace shapeless granny frock. She curls up on the floor and then suddenly stiffs like  a corpse on her side, then rolls around in a bizarrely ungainly fashion for such an elegant dancer. I felt embarrassed to start the evening seeing my heroine’s knickers. She then runs around for a while amongst a group of unseeing standing figures dressed in plain modern clothes. Some of them twist and arch like she did, as if gripped by a disease, then stand again. Finally, Eva goes through an enormous wooden door at the back of the stage, and the whole strange sequence is thankfully over.

Next up was a piece called Soledades, danced to milonga. (This was a new rhythm to me in flamenco that is, unsurprisingly, a descendant of the Argentinean “Tango”. In Flamenco repertory it was adapted in a style very similar to the mixture of Zambra and Tientos, what some artists call Tientos por Zambra, or Tanguillo Zambrillo.)

Eva danced alone in a purple dress overlaid with black webs, she is truly like a cobra or a black widow, her fluidity and sinuousness are mesmerising. She is not human. Her bones seems to bend all ways, her arms move so fast you cannot see them, her hands blur into a single circle as she rotates them. She casts a dark spell, and you have no choice but to surrender.

Then there follows a sort-of lovers scene where she dances with Eduardo Guerrero, around and indeed through a table that flips on its side to become a wall, allowing their arms through, both barrier and tantalising touch. Guerrero grasps at her black cobweb dress and pulls it off and back through the table/wall. But the section’s emotions don’t quite convince. In between Eva’s dances, Mercedes de Cordoba and Lorena Franco show off some fine moves, alternately playful and passionate, though they are hindered every so often by bizarre mimes, as if they are using sign language around their ears, and then a repeated movement that Eva also does where they draw their mouths open into huge “O”s, like the ghost of Marley unwinding his bandages in A Christmas Carol. It feels a bit Marcel Marceau, the surrounding mood hasn’t created enough emotion to make such a move feel right and resonant and perhaps speaking of howls of sadness.

In a jaunty middle section we are suddenly in a pena or party with alegrias. The boys – Guerrero and Fernando Jimenez – have some fun playing around with fans and flirting, and Franco and de Cordoba get the party started. Meanwhile Eva is a kind of Cinderella, finding a slightly threadbare velvet frock in a dressing-up box, and togs herself up in full gypsy regalia, with flower and peineta (comb) and playful, diva-ish dancing. But she doesn’t seem to fit in and the other girls look sniffily at her.

Finally,  we get to the real deal: Eva’s solea was rich and beautiful. She rippled in a black velvet bata de cola, her sides picked out in sparkling crystals. She summoned up all kinds of forces, the purity of her style and the sensuality of her movements combining in a deadly finale, where she whipped a blood-red mantilla into submission.

This was the stuff that tears hearts and stirs souls, that summons up the pure melancholy Yerbabuena speaks of. More of her soulful sorcery, and fewer artificial flourishes, and the show would have lived up to its name. She remains an intriguing, entrancing and deep bailaora, but this time my heart remained resolutely unbroken.

Flamenco Club Fiesta this Sunday

Email quick – there are free tickets for the first 200 people to do so!

Sadlers Wells Flamenco Festival 2010: Nuevo Ballet Espanol, Cambio de Tercio

First blood! I am fairly reeling with the lipsmacking anticipation of a ruby-red duende feast. February is a month to sink your teeth into in London, with luscious flamenco treats every week at the Flamenco Festival.

This year Sadler’s Wells claims that it’s the women in the driving seat of flamenco generally, and thus the festival reflects that. This is all well and good, but at the same time the festival programme tells quite a different story: topless dancers, Eva Yerbabuena in a white dress arching her back in the pouring rain, dresses with the fronts cut out, Rocio Molina in a backless mantilla dress. It’s not all of it, but it’s a lot and a big change from previous programmes. I’m all for sexiness, sultriness and sass but you don’t need to add this kind of FHM styling to flamenco – its own sensuality is enough.

However the boys from Nuevo Ballet Espanol would definitely disagree. It seemed a bit strange to open a festival dedicated to flamenco women with a duo of men, Rojas and Rodriguez (albeit supported by four female dancers), and the show was a real camp oddity. I’ve seen NBE once before and it didn’t really ring my bell. It felt a bit cheesy. This time it was definitely more fun, but the cheeseometer was again set to maximum. It’s not deep flamenco, no cante jondo here, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. They say they’re all about mixing old and new and opening flamenco up to new generations: their approach to doing this is to add a Disneyish pop sensibility. It’s cartoonish and brightly coloured, a bit Wizard of Oz. There’s skill and style on display but it’s all too frequently drowned in cheesy showbiz flourishes. The show – entitled Cambio de Tercio, Change of Direction – is described as a departure from the duo’s testosterone-fuelled works of the past. If this means swerving directly past testosterone, through macho and straight on to camp, then this is definitely true.  These guys are the David LaChapelle of flamenco.

I’m not saying it was all bad. The opening sequence – after a bit of unnecessary posing and preening by the boys – featuring the whole company dancing in exact time to the beats of the music, was fast, precise and sassy. The purple and black dresses were simple and stylish. Then a nice piece of stage magic saw the lights snap off on the ensemble, and almost instantly snap back on again in a series of spotlights to show the band, who had materialised at the front of the stage.

The two female singers offered a lovely husky quality to their voices – unfortunately they didn’t offer it often enough, rarely dropping below jet-engine volume and harsh screeching. Fortunately they were balanced out a little by the use of a violin as well as guitars, which thanks to the wonderful violinist added a beautiful depth and richness and emotion – at least for the music. A full drum kit added drama, and the cajon playing was rich and beautiful.

The second piece timewarped us back to Torremolinos in 1975. Rojas was dressed in red trousers with a red checked shirt, and the women in eye-searing hot pink, orange and lime green stripes and frills with fans. It was just way too much. Unintentionally, I think, it did actually start to work when the lighting became all red: it gave the scene a hyperreal, acid-trip feel, Flamenco In Wonderland, which could have been interesting – what happens when you turn all the dials up to 11?  But in general it was like a sherbet saucer: achingly sweet, artificially coloured and frothily insubstantial.

The next sequence, featuring just Rojas, was really enjoyable – he is by far my favourite dancer of the pair. Clad in tight chocolate silk, he showcased fast, furious footwork with impressive control over light and shade. He’s great at drawing the audience in – and when he doesn’t let this slide into cheese, it’s a great place to be.

But then, after we’d been lulled into a false sense of style security, came the horror. The horror. Even now this is seared across my retinas. A choreography with castanets – and the women in cropped, polka dot dresses that were surely designed by Minnie Mouse on crack. They were like Disney toilet-roll dollies. Rodriguez sported tight white budgie-smugglers, a red shirt and waistcoat with polka dots the size of Wagon Wheels.  This is the only photo I could find – it’s slightly blurred but indicates the level of trauma on offer. (You can see it in living colour in the video below – but don’t say I didn’t warn you.) On top of this the choreography was dull, the castanet-playing was just too Costa del Tat and one of the dancers lost an earring: instead of just leaving it or kicking it out of the way she insisted on retrieving it and faffing around with getting it back on – it was distracting. I sat there willing it to end, and soon.

Two forgettable pieces followed, a solo by one of the women and the violinist, which had great potential to be moving, and started well as she appeared out of nowhere wearing a bata de cola made out of roses. But it lacked passion, power and storytelling. Then Rojas and Rodriguez pranced about for a bit in brown leather embroidered chaps, and it felt a bit by-numbers and smug.

Things improved radically as two female dancers  slunk onto the stage in dramatic and beatiful white bata de colas with red underskirts. They looked pretty but also a little unnerving, like snow queens from a Grimm tale – the red like blood. They moved like predatory animals, hunting the males, swishing and flicking their long skirts menacingly, like angry cobras or strange aliens. I’ve not seen bata de colas worked in quite that way before, and it was brilliant. The following section where four of them whirled red and white mantillas around was visually arresting in terms of colour but they weren’t in time enough, so it looked messy.

Next up Rodriguez had another surprise for us, with a fun and inventive piece. It started with the singer doing those funny noises that teachers do for you when you try and get rhythms, singing the shape of the compas and what your body needs to do. It’s hard to describe, you get a lot of “tak-a-tak-a-ta” and “doma doma doma” – if you go to the R&R site they have it playing in the background. He sang and looped it Matthew Herbert-style, building up a fabric of beats and sounds. Then the castanets and palmas and drums joined in, the energy rising with each percussive beat. Then the singers started half singing, half-talking, almost rapping in a sassy way – it was like a disagreement or argument in a rhythm I recognised from somewhere. Rodriguez seemed to dance to their commands or to each part of the argument, ending with a showy-but-fun spin across the stage, doing full 360 turns on his knees. For me this was the only genuine innovation of the show – playing with rhythm, with kinds of percussin, with singers.

The “whoops there go my bloomers” finale we won’t speak of again: the women had to wear gypsy pirate outfits with no top, so their bras were on show. The dancing was forgettable.

So, a patchy performance, with some nice moments, but overall an uneasy mix of cheese and sugar. With rare exceptions, this is not innovation: if anything it’s going backwards. There is talent here, as evidenced by their armfuls of awards, but unless they rein in their cartoonish tendencies, it will remain a bloodless Disney ride.

Flamenco Summer Day 5: 12 August 2009, Jerez

Class was a challenge today. Just like the Easter course, day 3 was a struggle. My biceps were grizzling; my hip joints growling, everything bitching about its sudden jolt into daily brutal, beautiful practice.

Like any transition, it was awkward. Once you’re smoothly into a routine – and physical routine tells this story better than most – it’s fine. It’s comfortable.

But getting there, hauling yourself from one plane of existence into another. Transforming yourself from sedentary, deskbound blimp into a 6-hours-a-day dancer. That’s a gritty, gnarly, buckets-of-sweat-and-please-God-can-I-stay-in-bed challenge.

And it’s also heady, delicious, wonderful. I was distraught when I had to go home. Sitting at my desk for 8 hours a day felt… obscene. My body loved – loves – to move. All day long. The process of getting to that love was painful, but the process was the love affair, really. How could I not fall for it? Tripping off to class in the warmth of an Andalucian morning. Starting the day being taught by one of my heroes. Resting for a break with my new friends, throwing back iced orange juice and sharing our addiction that nobody else really understands. Plunging back into class with the beautiful Beatriz, laughing as we haltingly worked ourselves up into a saucy, flirty, powerful bulerias de Jerez. Falling out of our final class of the day and tumbling into the pool, drenching our salt skin and feeling the blood sing in our veins.

Only today, there was no pool. After class I ran back to the San Andres, stopping only to grab some fresh iced water from my new friend Abdul at the tiny alleyway shop. For the second time, he insisted on slipping some delicious freshly-baked baklava into the bag, and fiercely refused any payment. Reluctantly, I conceded, stashed the treats in my bag and raced like a maniac to shower and change, rushing to meet the others at the crossroads, hair still sluicing water down my back and soaking my dress, heading to the beach.

When I got into the cab I found that we were mid-negotiation to go to a different, better beach. The negotiation continued… and as we drove, continued… to this beach, to that beach, to picking us up at the end of the day.. in the end, after some protracted haggling, we ended up with a chauffeur to the best beach we could find. He drove us out, and waited to pick us up after sundown. It was recklessly decadent but it was luxury itself to have a driver waiting on us. (He had a pretty nice afternoon too.)

We had a deliciously lazy day by the sea. Lounging on oven-hot sand; diving and playing in the seaweedy, super salty waves, dodging surfers and pervy boys alike. The ropes and chains of everyday life fell away and we relaxed: drinking tintos, eating baklava, sharing confidences, and soaking up the sun.

We were the only non-Spaniards there. And boy did it show, in some ways – there’s a posing behaviour in Spain that the English just don’t have. A trio of boys lay next to us, and a girl behind us stood up, the better to show her assets off. And she did. She stood and posed like she was on the cover of FHM, staying there for several minutes – pretending to dry off – while the boys literally dribbled. We were speechless with laughter at the whole thing, but the girls were deadly serious – and it really worked. (I also wondered how much we lose by our English repression and irony.)

As the sun sank lower, it was time for our chauffeur to pick us up. We reluctantly left our tintos and piled into the leather-smelling cab, a bundle of salty hair and delicious coconut-sandy arms and legs. That time of day is one of my alltime favourites – on the way home from the beach, the sun glowing over the cliffs, my nose a little pink, my hair full of salt, my freckles bursting out everywhere, my skin sand-soft, and just waiting for a long shower and to slip into a sleek coral silk dress.

And so I did. The night was a split vote: some went to La Taberna Flamenca, where apparently the show was not bad, but I’d visited before, and it held a touristy horror for me. I joined the others at Jerez’s cutest little street, off Plaza Arenal, for tapas at El Juanito. I wouldn’t recommend it – it’s expensive and featured some very odd dishes indeed. The location is charming, but that’s about it.

After dinner we wandered through Jerez, and with wonderful serendipity ran into some fellow students. (I say wonderful because I was still in London mode. But in Jerez it was entirely natural, and indeed, expected.) They said they’d just come from a great jazz bar, where the live music had finished (it was past midnight) but the party was still going. We tried to follow their directions, but in the midnight tangle of booze and medieval streets we were undone. Dejectedly, we wondered if we should call it a night.

And yet, some kind spirit shook a little magic dust on us, as just at that moment we turned a lost corner and stumbled upon Damajuana.

Ah, Damajuana.

Imagine a tiny winding medieval alley that looks like nothing. The walls are bleached yellow by the street lamps. There are a couple of guys standing by the door. It can’t be anything, you think. Not at this time. The rest of Jerez sleeps, peacefully, happily, in the summer night. There is no sound. Nothing at all.

You approach the doors. You smile at the guys. They nod back.

They swing open a pair of huge studded wooden doors.

And you step into Raiders of the Lost Ark.

A beautiful riad, white stucco and pointed archways and tiled floor and mahogany balconies, built around a central terrace in the traditional style. The upper floors are glazed windows, making us wonder who is lucky enough to live here. Huge sherry barrels piled in stacks, palms waving lazily, and assorted greenery and glamorous drunks filling out the edges. The roof is a laser-bright layer of stars.

The bars – there are two or three in the complex – are packed, packed full of people. As full as the streets are empty. So here’s where they’re all hiding. Sultry, sassy girls sashay past, soaking up the attention from the guys. It’s completely full at nearly 1am Wednesday night. It has a laidback, bohemian vibe. It’s also bizarrely old-fashioned, as some local caballeros fell instantly in love with Natalia (and who could blame them) and asked “May I introduce my friend?” Their pleas fell on deaf ears, and they slunk out, the man in question, clearly pierced through the heart, unable to rip his eyes off Nat until the very last moment.

It was impossibly sultry – at 2am it was still stickily hot, the heat where your legs stick together. We stayed until about 3am, when it was still packed. Does no-one in this town work?

Flamenco 2010: Vamos!

I don’t really like calling them New Year’s Resolutions, but I recently heard them described as “commitments with a little bit of wriggle room”, which I love. So here are mine, for this ruinously addictive, wonderful, challenging beast for this year:

>Go to the Feria de Abril in Seville, take classes and dance like a lunatic all night

>Learn Sevillanas

>Do a public performance

>Work out a new set of classes. The big 30-strong classes only do so much for me, and I can’t afford individual ones all the time. I should try some other classes and different teachers – and maybe try and do some private ones with a couple of the other chicas. Calling any teachers reading!

>Go to Jerez again, money permitting

>Finish writing up the tales from Jerez 2009 BEFORE I go again in 2010. (Seriously – what the hell is going on with that? Sort it out.)

>Go to the London pena more often (and check out any other socials)

>Make at least one flamenco dress and skirt (that is l-o-n-g enough – I didn’t get time to blog it before Christmas but I have now mastered the art of ruffles, so bring on the frocks, baby.)

>Be able to identify every single compas just by listening to the music.

I think that should just about cover it. Going to regular classes and working like a demon is pretty much taken as read.

I feel like 2009 was the year that I really committed to flamenco and started to reap some rewards. It brought a fair slug of frustrations and disappointments, some of which I could have done without. I’ve had to learn the hard way that not everyone is in this for the same reasons as me. But, at the risk of sounding like a gruesome self-help book, some of the bad stuff is teaching me too. I’m learning – with increasing awe – just how much time, effort and dedication goes into getting good at something. Really good at something. A lot of the things I’ve done, whether studies or music or whatever, I’ve got away with not having to work too hard. And I’m a bit of a dilettante; I’ve got into loads of things, some even for a while, but I rarely finish anything. I’m easily distracted, especially by the new and shiny, and not massively keen on hours of hard labour.

But flamenco – which isn’t exactly the easiest of art forms to start with – demands so much continuous effort. I often think I should do something easier, like naked mountain-climbing while carrying a yak. Just hanging in there this far represents more effort than I’ve put into most things – it’s a relationship that needs commitment, faith and patience. Most of the time the struggle is with myself: slaying dragons of laziness, doubt, fear. But I’m still here, which surprises me.

What’s remarkable is how it’s shaping me – admittedly some days “beating me into shape” might be a better phrase. This relationship is teaching me not to walk away from things just because they’re difficult; to steamroller the self-esteem demons; to bend things to my will instead of settling for what’s on offer. Not bad for “that dance you do – salsa, isn’t it?”

There’s one more “resolution” to add, which is to put into action my biggest learning from last year: to stop looking for approval and feedback all the time, and instead know inside myself that I can be good. It’s a really difficult thing for me to negotiate, becase on the one hand it sounds so appallingly wet, and on the other, like a recipe for arrogance-fuelled catastrophe. Nevertheless, self-confidence is the key – something flamenco has taught me that goes beyond any stage or performance.

I feel really excited about this year – a bit like this:

Flamenco Summer Day 4: 11 August 2009, Jerez

I’m breaking the Jerez 30 minute landspeed record as I gallop through the streets, trying not to skid on the wet pavements. Jerezanos watch the chica loca, baffled, as they stir their coffee and take another bite of a leisurely breakfast. But there’s no time for food – happily worn out from Monday’s adventures, I overslept. A lot. I slide into the back of the class in the nick of time and we’re down to business.

Inspired by the show the night before, I attack the choreography. The level was still too high for me, but I tore into it and made it work – there’s a lot to be said for this method! Experience had also now taught me to bring at least 3 litres of cold water to class, and I got through the lot. The room was like a sauna. It was like bikram flamenco. The small aircon units did their best but were no match for 30 women and a truckload of alegrias. Five minutes into class and I was drenched in sweat. 90 minutes in and we were all practically underwater. (I lost 5 pounds that week, and I didn’t skimp on the tapas either.) I kept thinking of the teacher in Fame: “You want fame? Well fame costs. And here’s where you start paying. In sweat!”

(What a tune! Tell me you weren’t nodding along. I used to crash into my bedroom walls on a weekly basis, dancing to that.  And there’s something for me to remember from the lovely Leroy as well:

“Cos I’m gonna be a dancer. A good dancer. And you know who says so? ME!”

Damn straight.)

Anyway, I couldn’t care less about fame, but getting good at flamenco is a different business altogether. I pushed myself harder and harder, ignoring my biceps squealing in pain, stiff from the first day’s exertions. My feet started to throb menacingly and when I took my shoes off they looked like brutalized pig trotters. It felt great. After class I needed the full hour for lunch to collapse in a heap on a pavement chair, glugging Coke, geting my breath back and catching some rays.

Bulerias was a lot better than the first day as it started to come together, but yet again I resolved to learn Spanish, as I was missing a lot of the detail. By the end of the day I was exhausted, and could barely lift my arms. It was a long walk home, but after a quick gourmet lunch of Pringles and Laughing Cow triangles I sneaked into my friends’ hotel to take full advantage of their pool. Let me tell you, there’s no pleasure quite like easing a flamenco-ravaged body into an ice-cool swimming pool. The long afternoon of lazing in the sun and sipping tintos wasn’t bad either. I believe this is what you call a work-life balance. After a long day at the Duende Office, every hardworking gal needs some R&R, right?

Later that evening we headed into town, but unfortunately we’d spent so long in a communal primping and preening session that we were all ravenously hungry and ready to eat almost anything. We got our wish: stopping at one of the first places we could, the food was epically bad and largely unidentifiable. Still, a pretty square, a fig tree that would have dwarfed a T-Rex, cold beer, what more do you want? Well, ice-cream, to be honest. As we left I sighed, “you know, what would be perfect right now would be some really good ice-cream.” We turned a corner and tucked into a medieval alleyway was a tiny shop selling 45 flavours of swooningly delicious home-made helado. I was a slave for the sour cherry flavour, and became their best customer.

We meandered through Jerez, savouring the chill of the ice-cream and the warmth of the air. 1am on a Tuesday night and the place was gently buzzing with people walking, laughing, chatting, drinking. But it wasn’t a 1am vibe like England. It was relaxed, more like 7pm, cocktail hour. No fighting, no puking, no hassle. Just people enjoying a beautiful summer evening (or indeed, morning).

We arrived at the cathedral, a towering wall of stone reached by hundreds of steps. It is an awe-inspiring colossus of a place. In the orange glow of the street lamps it looked like it was on fire.

At the top, in front of the doors, was a wide, stone terrace. It was just too tempting. We raced up the steps and danced bulerias, the sound of heel striking stone carrying far over the rooftops, over the Alcazar, and into the night.

Flamenco Summer Day 3 Part 4: 10 August 2009

Well it was a good thing that I was feeling free and confident, because I had to find my way around town. Jerez is small but labyrinthine. Winding street encircles winding street, especially in the old gypsy quarter where I spent a lot of my time.

In fact I started to feel like Sarah in (cherished 1986 Bowie/Jim Henson confection) Labyrinth, as I was led a merry dance through alleys and round churches and into squares and ending up back where I started. I discovered that the trick is to just keep heading in the direction of your destination: every street is so interconnected with every other one that you’ll get there eventually. Just be prepared for a few detours. No wonder everyone here has such a relaxed attitude to time..

Still, I found my way right across town to Plaza del Mercado eventually, where I met the others. It was a sleepy square, with a tiny cafe bar in one corner, several small dogs noodling about (no doubt plotting their next poop mission) and palm trees waving lazily in the night breeze. We snaffled the last table at the bar, which was to become our favourite place. A real spit and sawdust joint, with a tiny horseshoe bar inside and an epic plasma TV outside, which half the town seemed to be sitting watching as they ate, drank, chatted and yelled at whatever football foul had just been committed. An entire leg of jamon sat behind the bar, ready to be carved, and the bar also had the world’s smallest toilet. I’m not kidding. It made aeroplane toilets look like the Ritz penthouse. I nearly dislocated my shoulder in there just trying to turn around.

On the plus side they served cheap and generous portions of good, simple tapas (I recommend asking for media raciones unless you really are ready to eat a horse); equally cheap and generous servings of booze and they seemed to like having us there, even though we were plainly hanging out in a locals’ joint. It was a joy to be there – it was real, homey and far from the tacky tourist traps with their dessicated patatas bravas and picture menus.

The bar was also my first introduction to the joys of tinto de verano – literally “summer red wine”. It’s a mix of red wine and lemonade – but a particular sort of Spanish lemonade – mild and low in sugar – in the limon variant, more like bitter lemon. When I first came across the drink I was sceptical – nay, snooty! It sounded like sangria – cheap, nasty, sickly. (I was wrong on this as well – proper sangria is one of life’s great pleasures – imagine a sort of decadent mulled wine, but served cold – it’s a different dimension to the cheapo party fuel of Magaluf et al). But I hadn’t bargained on the shredding heat of Jerez in August. The temperatures climbed to the mid 30s in the morning, cleared 40 by lunch, and at night? It got down to about 27 if you were lucky. Drinking red wine in this heat felt about as appealing as gargling with sawdust. But tintos – clean and fresh and full of ice and so lethally drinkable they might as well have been Vimto – tintos were made for the job, and I was hooked from the first taste. (I’ve tried recreating them at home, but it just doesn’t work – the lemonade isn’t right, but most importantly – it’s not a sultry summer night in Jerez. They belong to a specific time and place.)

We were at Plaza del Mercado to catch a show at tablao El Laga de Tio Parilla – a touristy joint, but we didn’t care, it was the first night and we were on the hunt for duende. We just wanted first blood. It’s not cheap – 16E each, including a drink (but their tintos were grim premixed numbers – avoid this at all costs). You get about an hour of dancing with 3 or 4 dancers who change each night. We actually went twice – more out of desperation than anything else – and the experiences were vastly different – more on that later. But on the first night, it was great.

One dancer in particular, Manuela (below) was fantastic – in fact we later spotted her on

the cover of Song of the Outcasts, a book on flamenco. Another dancer who I think was called Kaya (in the orange polka dot dress) was really something special.

You can see this just from the photos. She had it, she had duende in spades. I was completely entranced, and then poleaxed when I found out she was just 16. She had the presence of a woman twice her age.I’m struggling to describe her, really – let the pictures tell the story.

The other dancer was just OK, and looked bored out of her mind while clapping along, and it felt a bit by numbers – there’s not much more depressing than this, when you get the feeling that you’re considered just some stupid tourist that they’re doing a little song and dance for. But Manuela was a joy – she exploded with energy, she laughed and smouldered and drew the audience into her world. Kaya blew my mind. I was really pleased with some of the photos that I managed to get of them.

We headed back to the bar afterwards, where we met some locals, including Rafael who we’d see a lot that week. He seemed kindly enough, commenting on my height immediately and reassuring me that this was nothing to worry about with flamenco, as if he’d guessed my concerns. Eventually the bar closed at about 2am (well it was Monday night) and I wandered home through the silent streets, drunk on tintos and duende, like a very happy and slightly tipsy cat.